Wilma Murto (left), Martti Puumalainen, Eetu Kallioinen and Nacra 17 class sailors Sinem Kurtby and Akseli Keskinen are Finland’s biggest medal hopes at the 2024 Paris Summer Games. IL archive / AOP
1.75 medals. The medal prediction of the Finnish Olympic Committee’s elite sports unit for the blue-and-white athletes at the 2024 Paris Summer Games predicts such success.
– The situation is quite interesting when the top is narrow, but five athletes rise to the absolute top in light of the results. They have several podium-level performances, says the Finnish team manager in Paris Leena Paavolainen.
Athletes are pole vaulters Wilma Murtoa shotgun shooter Eetu Kallioinenjudoka Martti Puumalainen and Nacra 17 class sailors Sinem Kurtbay and Central axis.
– We are clearly in a better situation than before the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games. Then the medal prediction was less than one.
A swimmer in Japan Matti Mattsson and a boxer Mira Potkonen poked bronze.
– The goal for this Olympics was ten medals. We got eight from the Beijing Winter Games 2022, so it calls for two from Paris.
In China, Finland won six medals in cross-country skiing and two in ice hockey.
4 milli on the counter
Leena Paavolainen, who watched the Nordic Skiing World Cup in Ruka over the weekend, will serve as Finland’s team leader at the Summer Olympics in Paris next summer. Pasi Liesimaa
Paavolainen estimates that behind the top names there are 5-10 athletes who are “within striking distance of the medal positions” in Paris.
– The third category is about twenty athletes who have top-8 positions in their sports, i.e. they have the potential to be at the very top.
Based on the current analysis, Finland will send a minimum of 40 athletes from nine different sports to Paris.
– Realism currently has 63 athletes from fifteen different sports.
The number of athletes will increase substantially if the men’s basketball team manages to pass the screening in the July 2024 qualifying tournament.
On December 5, the Olympic Committee will publish the summer sports enhancement support decisions, when it distributes more than four million euros.
– We are prioritizing support for enhancement very strongly so that no compromises are made for top athletes, says Paavolainen.
– In addition, we allocate the expert activities of the national Olympic training centers and Kihu to the same entity. It will be almost one million euros more.
Glass ceilings broken
Paavolainen, who has worked in various roles in the Olympic Committee since 2010, will be Finland’s team leader in Paris for the first time. Never before has a woman handled this task.
The doctor of sports sciences, who is going to the five-ring competition for the eleventh time, has broken glass ceilings before. In 2008, Paavolainen, who was the head of the shooting sports association’s coaching, was the first woman to swim together Ippe Natusen with the Finnish Olympic team as sport director. In 2014, at the Sochi Winter Games, Paavolainen was the first woman in the general management of the Finnish Olympic team.
– Finland’s previous gold medal at the Summer Games is The fairy tale of Mäkelä-Nummela a trap win in Beijing when I was the sport leader. Paris would be a good place to fix the situation when I’m team manager, Paavolainen laughs.